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Lili: A Child of Eos

Score: 87%
ESRB: Not Rated
Publisher: BitMonster Inc.
Developer: BitMonster Inc.
Media: Download/1
Players: 1
Genre: Adventure/ RPG

Graphics & Sound:

If I hadn't done the research before starting this review, I would never have guessed that Lili: Child of Geos was an iOS port, but in hindsight, the game's unusual fighting mechanic makes perfect sense for a touchscreen system.

Lili's graphics are flat-out stunning. The island of Geos is a strange place filled with unusual characters and simple architecture. From the game's opening location on the island's beach, all the way through the four different quadrants, I found myself in awe over the game's style and artful execution of that look. I particularly liked how well the game was able to make the 50 spirits and various constructs scattered throughout the island able to look distinct enough to tell them apart, even though they all tend to have the same overall appearance.

Lili: Child of Geos's music is fun and whimsical, but nothing that will really stick with you afterwards, and while the game doesn't boast much in the way of voicework (besides the occasional "Hello" that is), it does offer a lot of solid ambiance in the way of environmental sound effects. The island of Geos isn't large, but there are a few distinctly different locations and you will hear the appropriate sounds to set the stage.


Gameplay:

Lili: Child of Geos follows a young girl who arrives on a strange island in order to fulfill an assignment at her magic school. She is going to scour the island in order to find a rare collection of magical flowers. When she arrives at Geos, she finds that it is populated by two kinds of people, wooden mechanical figures called constructs and their creators, strange masked creatures called spirits.

It quickly becomes apparent that the spirits use the constructs as their slaves, and as Lili gets to know the island's inhabitants, she develops a desire to free the wooden race from their lot in life, and, low and behold, the best way to do that is to collect her much-needed flowers.

When Lili comes across Trainer, a martial arts master construct, he teaches her how to chase down spirits and pluck the flowers from their hulking bodies. If you pluck enough white flowers, a rare red Soul Flower will appear and that particular spirit is out of the game.

The island of Geos is split into four quadrants, and each location has several spirits and constructs going about their daily business. Talking to constructs will grant you a few side quests that will help make their lives even better, but your primary goal is to keep an eye out for spirits. When they see you, they turn tail and run away. As you chase them down, they will throw bombs to slow you down, but you will eventually get close enough to jump on their back and start your rather unusual battle.

Lili has three stats that help her with her missions: speed, grip and stealth. Stealth is primarily used to try and sneak up on the spirits, while speed makes it easier to run the enemies down, but grip is where you will want to focus more than a few of your skill points since that is essentially your health meter while in a tussle. As you hang on the back of a spirit, your grip slowly slips. This meter also falls if you miss your target and grab thin air or, even worse, grab a thorn. The spirit will also occasionally sprout bombs that, if left unplucked, will explode and make Lili slip just a little more.

Lili also has a few items she can buy from a local store to help in her spirit hunting. The Speed Sandwich gives her a temporary boost that means you are pretty much guaranteed to catch whichever enemy you are chasing, while the Invisibility potion will let you not only sneak up on an unsuspecting spirit, but also get past the guard spirits that show up later in the game. While those are both useful, keeping your stats upgraded means these aren't all that necessary. The tool that is a bit help though is the Flash Bomb. While being flung around on the back of a spirit, a quick activation of this item will clear any thorns and bombs from the back of the spirit.


Difficulty:

My first playthrough of Lili: Child of Geos was on the game's middle difficulty setting and I found myself easily able to work my way through each of the game's 50 spirits. While the game was a little more challenging on the harder setting, any time I found myself not quite able to hold on long enough to get the job done was quickly remedied by buying the next tier in Lili's equipment that would make her a more effective spirit hunter.

I found that, regardless of the difficulty setting, Child of Geos did a great job of slowly ramping up the difficulty of the spirits you ran across. Early enemies required only a few white flowers to be plucked before the red one appeared, while later ones would yield more. To make matters more interesting, the spirits start going into frenzies that would sprout more thorns or bombs, making it that much harder to grab the flowers or keep bombs from blowing up. It is during these frenzies that the Flash Bombs paid off.


Game Mechanics:

While playing Lili: Child of Geos, I found the game's fighting mechanic to be most unusual. As described above, while on the back of a spirit, your job is to pluck flowers while avoiding thorns and taking care of bombs. You do this by clicking on the sprout with your mouse and tugging at it as if to pull it out. While it feels right for the action you are performing, it felt odd to be doing it in a game. It wasn't until I was preparing to write this review that I realized Lili: Child of Geos is actually an iOS port, at which point, the odd mechanic made perfect sense given the iPhone or iPad's touch screens. Thankfully, the action translates well to the mouse and even though it seems unusual when you jump on the back of your first spirit, before that fight is over, any awkwardness is erased.

As a casual RPG adventure game, Lili is a fun distraction that can be run through in a couple of days, but there are enough side missions to drag that experience out just a bit more. Anyone looking for a fun experience with an odd game mechanic should check out this title.


-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications
AKA Chris Meyer

Minimum System Requirements:



Windows XP, Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz processor, 2 GB RAM, Intel HD 4000 Graphics Card, DirectX 9.0c, 2 GB Hard Drive space.
 

Test System:



Windows 8.1 64-bit, Intel i7-4770K 3.5GHz, 8 GB RAM, Radeon HD 5870 Graphics Card, DirectX 11

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